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There have been various 'famous predictions' made throughout history, including those by scientists based on the scientific method, theoretical non-fiction predictions of social and technological change of futurologists, economic forecasts of economists regarding financial markets, wealth and resources, philosophical predictions of the perfectibility of man, religious and teleological predictions, and the fictional predictions of science fiction.
Predictions can be further categorised as good or bad, successful or failed. For some, the jury is still out, such as those of the Malthusian prophets of doom regarding sustainability and overpopulation and the Cornucopian and Utopian futures of abundance and perfection.
Often, the difference between pessimistic and optimistic prediction depends on attitudes such as technophilia, technophobia, and political / social bias.
Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke is famous for his three laws of prediction. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously argued that to understand the future it was necessary to understand the past.
Nostradamus is perhaps the world's most famous author of prophecies.

Contents

Prophets of doom and Cornucopians

Utopians and Dystopians

Scientific prediction

Futurologists

Economic forecasting

Religious futures

Science fiction

See also

External references

Prophets of doom and Cornucopians

★ ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'' by Thomas Malthus in 1798 started the fears of a Malthusian catastrophe where overpopulation returns people to mere subsistence.

★ ''The Population Bomb'' by Paul R. Ehrlich in 1968 predicted disasters due to Neo-Malthusian concerns.

★ ''The Limits to Growth'' (1972, by Club of Rome) -often, erroneously, accused of predicting the inevitable exhaustion of natural resources. See the main article for more detail.

★ Cornucopian - main article lists known cornucopians (the anti-Malthusians)

Utopians and Dystopians

★ Utopia - main article lists many variants and examples, plus a history of the idea.

★ Dystopia - main article lists many variants and examples, plus a history of the idea

★ William Godwin had published his utopian work ''Enquiry concerning Political Justice'' in 1793, with later editions in 1796 and 1798. Also, ''Of Avarice and Profusion'' (1797).

★ Marquis de Condorcet had published his utopian vision of social progress and the perfectibility of man ''Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progres de l'Espirit Humain (The Future Progress of the Human Mind)'' in 1794.

★ ''Looking Backward: 2000-1887'' was written by Edward Bellamy in 1888. The novel imagined that by 2000, the United States would be a socialist utopia, with far shorter work weeks for menial laborers and far greater leisure time for all workers. His novel predicted things such as skyscrapers, and a device used to hear and view concerts in the home that resembles a modern television.

★ Herbert Spencer argued for inevitable social progress, and helped found Social Darwinism.

Scientific prediction

★ Prediction - main article provides a few examples of famous experiments

★ Anomalies in observations of Mercury's orbit were predicted by Einstein

★ The existence of Neptune was predicted through mathematical modelling based on Sir Isaac Newton's Law of gravity

★ Radio waves were predicted by James Clerk Maxwell

★ Ultimate fate of the universe

★ ''Engines of Creation'' by K. Eric Drexler which involves molecular nanotechnology changing the world, and introduces the grey goo scenario.

★ Final anthropic principle - highly contentious prediction bordering on philosophy

Futurologists

★ ''Future Shock'' by Alvin Toffler considered change moving too fast for humans to cope.

★ ''The End of History and the Last Man'' (1992, by Francis Fukuyama), heralding the arrival of the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." Now generally regarded to be inaccurate compared to current events.

★ ''The Clash of Civilizations'' by Samuel P. Huntington, published in ''Foreign Affairs'', Volume 72, Number 3, Summer 1993 and later expanded into a book states 'the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.'

★ ''The Coming Technological Singularity'' (1993, by Vernor Vinge) - a prediction of imminent acceleration of progress caused by increasing speed of computers and developments in AI.

★ ''An Illustrated Speculative Timeline of Future Technology and Social Change'' (1993-2004, by J.R. Mooneyham) [1]

★ ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' by Ray Kurzweil in 1999 concerns the idea of the singularity as well as machine intelligence in the future

★ "Why the future doesn't need us" (April 2000, by Bill Joy) - an essay warning about the dangers of robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology to humanity. The essay has achieved wide exposure because of Bill Joy's prominence.

★ ''Visions of the World to Come'' (November 2001, by Arthur C. Clarke) - Clarke presents a speculative timeline of the 21st century.

★ ''Our Final Hour'' by Martin Rees in 2003. The book presents the notion that the Earth and human survival are in far greater danger from the potential effects of modern technology than is commonly realised. Hence the 21st century may be a critical moment in history when humanity's fate is decided. Rees gained controversy, and notoriety, by estimating that the probability of extinction before 2100 AD is around 50%. This is based on the possibility of malign or accidental release of destructive technology and gained some attention as he is a well-regarded astronomer.

★ ''Dark Age Ahead'' by Jane Jacobs in 2004. As it implies the book warns of a pessimistic future, in this case caused by a decay in science, community, and education.

★ ''Tomorrow Now: Imagining the Next 50 Years'' by Bruce Sterling in 2002. A popular science approach on futurology, reflecting technology, politics and culture of the next 50 years.

Economic forecasting

★ ''Oil Storm'' is a 2005 television docudrama written by James Erskine and Caroline Levy. The movie deals with the impact that a Category 5 downgrading to a Category 4 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico would have if it hit New Orleans, destroyed large numbers of offshore oil rigs in the Gulf, and crippled the primary nerve center of the Gulf Coast petroleum. (aired June 5, 2005)

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★ Hurricane Katrina Category 3 (morning of August 29, 2005)

★ In 1987, Ravi Batra predicted an economic depression in his best-selling book, ''The Great Depression of 1990.'' He subsequently wrote other books on surviving economic upheaval.

★ In 1996, economist Alan Greenspan famously predicted that there was irrational exuberance in the stock market on Dec 5, 1996. His warning went unheeded and the stock market continued to boom in the late 1990's until the stock market downturn of 2000 and 2001, when it became evident that the warning was correct.

Religious futures

★ Bible prophecy

★ Prophecy

★ Armageddon

★ Apocalypse

★ Heaven

★ Nirvana

★ Paradise

★ Purgatory

★ Hell

★ Teleology

★ Destiny

Science fiction

★ Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction - comprehensive listing of humanity's worst fears

★ Future history - list of common backgrounds created by science-fiction authors for their stories

★ ''Brave New World'' by Aldous Huxley in 1932 imagined a rigid, yet superficially "happy", dystopia that controls people through a mixture of mind control and biotechnology

★ ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1948, by George Orwell) - a dystopian book set in Oceania, a totalitarian state that emerged in the Americas and the British Empire. The book extrapolates the reality of contemporary Stalinist Russia and Hitler's Germany. The main protagonist is Winston Smith whose job involves supporting the historical revisionism and propaganda of the political regime. Many original concepts from the book, such as doublethink, thought crime and newspeak have since entered popular consciousness.

★ Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. The new science of psychohistory can simulate history and extrapolate the present into the future.

★ The author H.G. Wells wrote several works predicting future scientific advances and often exploring the problems technology cause humanity. He was especially adept at predicting the future role of airplanes in warfare. His 1901 book, ''Anticipations'' imagined trains, cars, sexual freedom, and eugenics. In ''The World Set Free'', published in 1914, he eerily predicted the creation of the atom bomb. His 1933 work, ''Shape of Things to Come'', foresaw the extensive use of aerial bombardment in warfare. This was later adapted into the widely seen and critically important Alexander Korda science fiction film ''Things to Come''.

★ ''Paris in the 20th Century'' is a science fiction novel by Jules Verne written in 1863 that features detailed descriptions of a world of glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, and a worldwide communications network. It was not published in Verne's lifetime, and was only discovered by his great-grandson in 1989. It was published in 1994.

★ ''Make Room! Make Room!'' - novel by Harry Harrison that predicted overpopulation in 1999 resulted in an unsuspecting population being sustained through cannibalism. Made into the movie Soylent Green.

★ ''Logan's Run'' is a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, published in 1967. Describing a dystopian future society in which the population is kept young by euthanizing everyone who reaches a certain age. This neatly avoids the problem of overpopulation.

★ ''Stand on Zanzibar'' - John Brunner's 1968 vision of overpopulation in 2010

★ Z.P.G. 1972 film featured an overpopulated, very polluted future Earth, whose world government practices Zero Population Growth, executing persons who violate the 30-year ban on procreation.

★ ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' by Douglas Adams. Deep thought famously predicts the great computer that is to come (the Earth) which provides the equally famous Answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe and Everything.

★ ''Up the Walls of the World'' a 1978 novel by James Tiptree, Jr describes life in a huge polar vortex on a Gas giant planet. Such a vortex was discovered on Saturn by astronomers in 2006. [2].

★ ''The Twentieth Century'' (1882, by Albert Robida) - a book by a French author set in 1952 Paris, with a plethora of illustrations.

See also

★ End of civilization

★ Human extinction

★ Prescience

★ Precognition

★ Failed predictions

★ Timeline of the future in forecasts

External references

★ Famous bad predictions from Things People Said

★ Bad Predictions from Anecdotage.com

★ The Coming Technological Singularity, presented at VISION-21 Symposium, March 30-31, 1993

★ Why the future doesn't need us, Wired, April 2000

★ Arthur C. Clarke Offers His Vision of the Future, presented at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, November 30, 2001

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